Q I want to ask you right off the bat whether you had a chance
yet to speak to Nancy Reagan.

MRS. BUSH: I haven't spoken to her yet. The President spoke to
her on Saturday night when we were in France, he talked to her then.
But we're going to pay a call on her tomorrow evening when we get back
to Washington.

Q So you will see her then?

MRS. BUSH: So I will see her then.

Q You know, I know your father passed away from Alzheimer's.

MRS. BUSH: That's right.

Q So it must have been very personal for you to understand what
she was going through?

MRS. BUSH: It is. And I know how very difficult it is for the
patient, obviously -- but also for the caregiver; it requires
unbelievable strength of character to take care of the person you love,
as you see them slip away like that. The long goodbye, they call
Alzheimer's. It's such a tragic disease. And Nancy, really, once
again has been a great role model for all of us in her devotion to her
husband through this long, long disease.

Q And, of course, she is now pushing to have the restrictions on
stem cell use removed, restrictions that the President put on three
years ago, because she feels that it could help patients with diseases
like Alzheimer's.

MRS. BUSH: Well, there are stem cells to do research on, and there
is a -- you know, we have to be really careful between what we want to
do for science and what we should do ethically. And stem cell issue is
certainly one of those issues that we need to treat very carefully.

Q So you're not prepared to endorse that just yet?

MRS. BUSH: No.

Q Now, you are here with all of the other spouses, the wives
all, I guess, of the G8 people. Sometimes the husbands haven't gotten
along all that well over issues like Iraq. How do you all get along?

MRS. BUSH: We get along very well, and actually the husbands get
along very well, too. We had a dinner here in this very spot last
night. We hosted the heads of state right down here, we had tables
here. We had a great southern dinner, with fried green tomatoes and
grits and all the foods that are specialties here in Georgia. And we
had a really great evening.

And today, I'm going to meet with the wives of the heads of state.
We have a woman coming from the Iraqi Governing Council, we have a
woman coming from the Afghan Governing Council, we have a Fulbright --
Iraqi Fulbright scholar, a woman who is here studying in the United
States, to talk to all of us about what we can do as spouses of the
eight most developed countries, to help them, to assist in Afghanistan
and in Iraq.

Q Let me go back to President Reagan for just a moment. What
are your memories of him and how did he influence your life? And, of
course, now you're sitting in the same place that he and Mrs. Reagan
did. You must have a slightly different view of things.

MRS. BUSH: Well, I have great memories of him. We weren't with
him that much, of course, but we would come to visit George's dad when
he was Vice President and we were invited to the White House a few
times while they were there.

And I think really what people remember the most about Ronald
Reagan was his size, his -- he filled a room with his -- he was a big
man with a great size, and he had a wonderful, funny sense of humor, a
wonderful way to be with people. He was self-deprecating, he was --
made you feel instantly at home. And I know that when you meet the
President of the United States, certainly when we met him when he was
President, we didn't know what to say to him, we were intimidated, and
he made us feel very at home.

Q Now, your daughters have graduated from college.

MRS. BUSH: That's right.

Q And they're going to work in the campaign. Have they started
yet?

MRS. BUSH: No, they haven't started yet. They graduated a couple
of weeks ago and they're in Europe right now, on their graduation
tours. And they'll be back in the United States in the next couple of
weeks. And then they'll go to work, we hope.

Q Do you know what they're going to do?

MRS. BUSH: I think they'll work at the headquarters, maybe, some
and then maybe they'll go out if they feel like they have enough
confidence --

Q And hit the campaign trail?

MRS. BUSH: -- and hit the campaign trail.

Q Well, Mrs. Bush, thank you very much for spending time with us
this morning.